Use of a Computerized Reading and Writing Teaching Program for Families of Students with Intellectual Disabilities

Family can be an important educational agent if it has the tools to teach its members. This study investigated the effectiveness of a computerized reading and writing teaching program applied with students with intellectual disabilities in their own residences, having their family members as monitors. The program included positive teaching techniques, such as ongoing feedback and gradual progression according to the student's performance. The teaching tasks included matching dictated with printed words and pictures and also constructing printed words from constituent letters and syllables. All students began the program with less than 20 % correct responses in naming words on pretest trials. The posttest results showed an average of 89.3 % of correct responses for teaching words and 52 % correct responses for generalization words. These results indicate that in-home implementation of this program by families can be a promising teaching approach for students with intellectual disabilities.